All the sec 4s are mugging for prelims, you know that, I know that, and if you have a dolphin, it’ll probably know that too.

But what will differentiate people who will get higher marks than me and, er, me? Maybe it would help by saying that I have not done a single piece of social studies homework since… March holidays i think.

And, of course, I received some interesting advice.

you came for me, when i’d lost all hope.. says:
stop muging.
you came for me, when i’d lost all hope.. says:
mugx0r
you came for me, when i’d lost all hope.. says:
gay mugx0rs.

social studies is a waste of time.. said:
u mugging yer ss?
social studies is a waste of time.. said:
pls dont mug.. is a waste of time

Anyways, chemistry practical is tmr, and here ya have it:

(And I can’t read it either)

It’s hard not to get bored on MSN.

And you might end up doing this:

Disney, for one, isn’t happy. Their dog’s popularity would be hitting an all-time low, after being labelled a ‘dwarf planet’.

Astronomers aren’t happy either.

Pluto Loses Designation, Sues IAU

In a move that surprised many legal observers, one of Pluto’s leading public-interest groups yesterday sued the International Astronomical Union after the IAU declassified Pluto as one of the nine “classical” planets that circles the Sun. It is not yet known where venue for the case ultimately will be placed or precisely which judge eventually will hear the case.

And the response gets interesting.

“Oh give me a break. It is not like they are saying take a nuke and blow the rock up.”

And

WTF did they do to my dog!?!
Posted by: Mickey Mouse | August 25, 2006 01:46 PM

The prelim has barely started — in fact, the written papers hasn’t started — and it is only into the 2nd day of the period where you can rightfully say ‘I screwed up bad’. However, this is has not stop us from starting the unstarted prelims with a poor mentality.

Is it just me, or why is it that only ST members give a damn about screwing their practicals? Or is it… maybe only ST members screw up?

ST FTW! ^^

Yay. It’s official! One less planet to remember.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to demote Pluto from the ranks of the solar system’s now 8 planets. The decision comes as Pluto no longer fits the newly ratified definition of a planet decided upon by the IAU this week. The new definition states that a planet is “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”

Pluto does not clear the neighborhood around its orbit because its orbit overlaps with its much larger neighbor Neptune. This therefore disqualifies it from planet status according to the IAU. Instead, Pluto will be classified as a dwarf planet and join the ranks of other dwarf planets such as Ceres, which lies between Mars and Jupiter and 2003 UB313 or ‘Xena’ as discoverer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology has nicknamed it. ‘Xena’ is an icy object that lies after Pluto and is slightly larger than the now dwarf planet.

Today’s prelim’s physics practical didn’t went too well at all.

Well, I mean, following instructions and performing the experiment wasn’t difficult at all just like any other physics practical, but the results of my experiment were so damn screwed.

For sec 4s who wish to know, my guess is that the heat capacity of the pendulum bob is probably between 0.3 to 0.4 J/gK, as it is probably made of brass or copper — Which is so damn different from my results. The final temperature should be about 34.5 or 35 degrees centigrade from reverse calculations. The graph should be a curve without any drops, as that would mean that the heat is loss to the surroundings and blah blah blah.

Speed reading wasn’t a good idea at all, with me reading ‘Remove the thermometer and place the pendulum bob in the boiling water for at least 1 minute’ as ‘Remove the thermometer and the pendulum bob from the boiling water for at least 1 minute’.

And a minute later, after quite a fair bit of heat is loss to the table as I left it lying there, my final temperature still managed to reach an astounding 36 degrees, which is like wtf. I mean, if I left the bob there to lose heat to the surroundings for a minute, the final temperature of the water should be lower than the expected 34.5 degrees and NOT higher. Blah. And to make things worse, after recording the value of 36 degrees as the final temperature, I thought to make up for the heat loss as I left the bob lying on the table for that one minute, I decided to alter my results and bring the values higher. ARGH @#%$.

As far as I’ve worked out, I loss:

-1 mark for not having at least 8 value of t and the corresponding value of T.
-1 mark for unsightly un-smooth curve which I redrew at the dying seconds after altering my values
-1 for incorrect specific heat capacity (I think they’ll most likely accept anything from 0.2 to 0.4)
Probably -1/2 for not showing the dotted lines of how I got my value of the Final Temperature from the graph

And that’s being rather optimistic already, assuming that they don’t deduct marks for ridiculously high values of T which I made up recorded.

Ohh and — being so engrossed in plotting your graph with a cup of hot water next to you, and unknowningly knocking it over, inevitably getting your question paper half-soaked in the middle of the practical probably isn’t such a good idea.